Top 3 Tips to Keep Your New Year’s Compressed Air Resolution

The New Year has started and with it an endless supply of solemn vows to stop smoking, hit the gym more regularly, and shed those last ten pounds. For some, these will be life-changing resolutions, for others, yet another round of empty promises made in haste right after the ball dropped at midnight. So what about your compressed air system? Do you have a plan for making meaningful improvements to your system efficiency or have you have made another half-hearted resolution to reduce waste…somehow? Here are three tips to keep your compressed air resolution.

Make an informed resolution. Don’t grab an efficiency improvement percentage out of thin air. In order to set a goal for your compressed air system, you first need to have an understanding of how the system is currently operating—its strengths and weaknesses. The best way to do this is with a compressed air assessment. A good one will help you build a demand profile and identify areas of inefficiency. It will also help you understand how your plant operates throughout the day, week, and over various shifts and levels of production demand. Let the data help you determine what you should resolve to change and how.

Be specific. It’s really not enough to say you want to reduce your energy costs. That’s only half of the resolution. The other part is to take specific action to accomplish it. For example, conduct a leak detection audit and fix the leaks that, based on the compressed air assessment, account for 25% of plant demand. Adding in the action part of the resolution will also give you some accountability to make the changes happen. And again, because you’ve gotten the compressed air assessment done, you’ll have actionable steps you can take to achieve your goals.

Follow-up to confirm you’ve met your resolution. After you’ve implemented the specific changes, check to make sure they’ve given the results you expected. You can do this with another compressed air assessment or by analyzing the data collected by a system master controller. This follow-up audit will make sure you are on the right track and also identify new areas for optimization.

If you’d like help with a compressed air assessment, contact us and we’d be more than happy to help.